Notes from the Motherland.
Outsiders think of Russians as cold, drunk and weird. Russians like to think of themselves as hospitable, hearty and smart-ass. If you are a Russian Outsider, however, a whole different perspective opens up.
I am early for a meeting with a friend, and I sit down on a bench in uptown’s prettiest street, to wait and to people watch. A woman walks out of a cosy boutique hotel, — one of the many that sprouted to accommodate the World Cup a few months earlier, — with a cute little pug on a leash. I can’t help but smile, I have a penchant for small ugly dogs. Ten minutes later I spot them as they are making their way back. Suddenly, the pug stops in his tracks and gets in position to poo. The woman is in palpable agony: it’s the middle of the wide sidewalk, busy with pedestrians. Well, shit happens you’d think, no big deal, I see this sort of thing in Vancouver all the time. The difference is, of course, that Canadians are in the habit of picking up their dogs’ poop. The pug does his thing, his owner reaches into her pockets, — and I almost exhale, thinking that she must be one of the conscious pet owners, like my parents, who always carry little bags with them when they walk their two chihuahuas. Hard lucks. The only thing she finds in her coat is a white handkerchief, and after some deliberation, she decides against using it, puts it back in her pocket and tugs the pug away forcefully, — away from the scene of the crime, and my bulging in disbelief eyes.
You see, Russian people are some of the most squeamish people I’ve ever met. It’s a realisation that hits me hard after being home for a couple of weeks. Nowhere in the world have I seen toilet seats more disgusting, — and I am not talking about some public portaloo. I am talking airports, and cocktail bars, and cinemas, and fancy restaurants. Because, you know, Russian women don’t sit on public toilets. Instead, they hover, sprinkling their unicorn mist all over the seats, apparently too repulsed to touch it in order to lift it. The amount of times I habitually landed my unsuspecting bare ass in that mess is too embarrassing to count. ‘Ewww, how can you sit down! What if someone else sat on it?!’ I can hear the voices of my girlfriends in my head. In response, Alex Borstein immediately comes to mind. She stole my heart at this year’s Emmys when she used what little time she was given for her best supporting actress acceptance speech to urge: ‘Ladies, when you use a public restroom, sit down. If you sit, we can all sit. Stop peeing on the seat.’
The more I contemplated about it, the more I came to the conclusion that this squeamishness, — this resentment towards all things public, communal, shared, — goes hand in hand with another national trait, and that is, that Russian people are profoundly inconsiderate. Everyone I know would move mountains for the close circle of their family and friends, but God forbid they have to move a finger for a stranger or the general, faceless ‘others’. Especially others who come after them. In the fancy health club that I joined for a month, I was struck by the unspoken rule when using the steam room: before you sat down, you were supposed to clean the tiled bench with a specially provided scrubber. It seemed obvious to all my fellow members that you must wash the space after some unknown, dirty, yucky stranger before sitting your own special ass on it. Cleaning after yourself in order to leave the seat nice for the next person?. No, that’s madness.
I can come up with many examples illustrating the same cultural peculiarity. The way Russians fight and push to leave the plane; the way they drive and even more so, the way they park; the impatience and snobbery they show towards service people; not picking up after themselves — or their dogs. It’s as if every single person thinks that the whole world revolves around them, and is against them at the same time. It’s a bizarre, unhealthy outlook symptomatic of the country’s view of itself at large.
A lot can be said about Russia’s current standing in the world, and I am not here to comment on it. It has certainly changed a lot since I left nearly a decade and a half ago, but industrial and cultural modernisations don’t always share the same pace. The third world is not an economic term as much as it’s a mentality. People from the third world often believe that what distinguishes the first world is the infrastructural and material aspects, like pothole-free roads and garbage-free streets. ‘Like in Europe’ is one of the most favourite Russian phrases to refer all things decent. Yet in their own life, what they strive for is as far away from ‘like in Europe’ as it gets. Ignorantly, they mistake wastefulness for good service (yes, I look at you, fancy health club, and your ridiculous single-use plastic cups at every water cooler), and consistently put their own personal convenience above common courtesy. Everyone has this entitled attitude like they alone deserve to push and overtake and cut corners. But in the country where everyone pushes and overtakes, nothing will ever change. What most of those aspirational Russians are failing to realise is that being from the first world is not about living a convenient life, it’s about living a considerate one. It’s not about the roads, or bike lanes, or pretty streets, — it’s about the care people show for their larger community and the world around them, regardless of personal connection. It’s about working together for a better future, and not trying to grab and use as much as you can while you’re around.
